


and one day we'll both be statues where the pigeons come to roost

by ambyr



Category: X-Men (Movies)
Genre: Chess, Gen, Washington D.C., X2, inspired by public art
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-05
Updated: 2011-08-05
Packaged: 2017-10-22 06:25:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/234879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambyr/pseuds/ambyr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles contemplates a chess problem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and one day we'll both be statues where the pigeons come to roost

Outside the Canadian embassy, Charles Xavier tilts back his head and stares at the sky. The clouds are moving quickly, caught in some summer breeze that can't be felt in the stifling city below. Charles imagines they are made of little flecks of paper, all the dozens of forms he's been presented with ripped to shreds and tossed to the wind.

"I'm sorry, Scott," he says, when the pleasant but useless dream has faded and he can infuse his voice with sympathy, not irritation. "It's another roadblock, but it's not the end."

"Yes, professor," Scott says, in clipped tones that mean the opposite. Charles brushes over the surface of his mind, a rippling tangle of anger, frustration, despair. There's no point in going deeper. He knows what he'll find.

Sometimes he thinks it would be better to stop trying to convince the Canadians to dredge Alkali Lake. Scott has displaced so much of his grief into the fight to regain Jean's body that he won't begin to heal until that door is closed. But today, and now, is not the time to tell him that.

"Why don't you take a moment?" Charles suggests. "I'll be in the park."

"I don't--" Scott starts sharply, and then exhales. "All right." Charles watches him stride down the steps, then wheels around toward the ramp.

It's more pleasant in the dappled shade, away from the asphalt. Charles rolls down the park's brick walkway and stops in the corner, contemplating the bronze statue. It's always been his favorite: two men, in three-piece suits his father would have approved of, bent over a game of chess.

It's an interesting puzzle to distract himself with, and he needs distraction. Who is winning? There are two pawns on the ledge by the left-hand player, but other pieces are missing from the board and nowhere to be seen. A rook, a knight, a bishop--no. Two bishops.

Charles frowns and rolls closer. He hasn't been here in years, and his memories of the board might lie, but the missing bishop is clasped in the right-hand player's fingers, and he is sure beyond doubt that they were empty before.

Erik has been here.

For a moment, Charles is tossed back in time, not to the prison's clunky plastic pieces but to the games they played with Erik's smooth, metal set when they first met. He remembers Erik sitting on his hands, shifting pieces with nothing more than a thought, and his own laughter. _You can't do that. It's cheating. How can I know when you've taken your mind off the piece?_

But this is no time for playing chess, for memories. Erik has been to the capital, up to God knows what, and Scott will need to be told.

 _Knight to G5_ , he thinks anyway, reflexively, as though Erik were still standing there, bareheaded, ready for him to call out the next move. But no. He's not sure if that _is_ his knight. That's the trouble with the sculpture, what makes it a puzzle; all the pieces are the same tarnished bronze. There's no way to tell black from white.

**Author's Note:**

> The sculpture is real. You can see pictures [here](http://dcmemorials.com/index_indiv0000352.htm).


End file.
